tello-asyncio

A library for controlling and interacting with the Tello EDU drone using modern asynchronous Python. All operations are implemented as awaitable coroutines, completed when the drone sends acknowledgment of the command message.

Package tello-asyncio on PyPi.

(If Rust is more your thing, there is also an equivalent asynchronous Rust library tello-edu)

$ pip3 install tello-asyncio

import asyncio
from tello_asyncio import Tello

async def main():
    drone = Tello()
    try:
        await drone.connect()
        await drone.takeoff()
        await drone.turn_clockwise(360)
        await drone.land()
    finally:
        await drone.disconnect()

asyncio.run(main())

See the examples directory for more usage example scripts.

Requires Python 3.6+. Developed and tested with Python 3.9.4 in Mac OS and 3.6.9 in Ubuntu 18.04 on a Jetson Nano. The tello_asyncio package has no other dependencies (and never will have any), but some examples need other things to be installed to work.

Full documentation is available on Read the docs

Tello SDK Support

• Tello SDK 2.0 (Tello EDU) - complete support
• Tello SDK 3.0 (RoboMaster TT) - complete support, but EXT commands for controlling LEDs etc must be formatted by the user

A Note on Awaiting

The Tello SDK command/response model is a natural fit for the asynchronous python awaitable idea, but the drone will get confused if commands are sent before it's had a chance to respond. Each command should be awaited before sending the next.

It works best sequentially like this...

await drone.takeoff()
await drone.land()

...but not concurrently (which will not work as expected)

await asyncio.gather(
    drone.takeoff(), 
    drone.land()
)

Version History

1.0.0

Basic drone control

• UDP connection for sending commands and receiving responses (default AP mode only - you must join the drone's own WiFi network)
• take off and land
• rotate clockwise and counter-clockwise
• move up, down, left, right, forward and back

1.1.0

Drone state

• listens for and parses UDP state messages (not yet including the mission pad related values)
• access via the read only state object attribute, or via shortcuts like height, temperature etc
• constructor takes an optional on_state callback argument for notification of new state
• or use the asynchronous generator state_stream for an infinite stream of updates

1.2.0

Advanced drone control

• flips
• go/curve to relative position
• emergency stop

Video

• start/stop video stream
• video url

Error handling

• handles error command responses from drone

1.3.0

Complete SDK

• mission pads
• wifi
• remote control

Video

• raw video frame data via callback or async generator

Error handling

• detects command/response mismatch

1.3.1

• Documentation

1.3.2

• Documentation on Read the docs

1.4.0

• Video frame data reassembled properly from UDP packet chunks
• Working video frame decoding example

1.4.1

• Video in OpenCV example

1.5.0

• Python 3.6 support

1.6.0

• Drone instance passed to state and video callbacks
• Wait for WiFi network (Linux only)

2.0.0

• Tello SDK 3.0 support

2.1.0

• Wait for Wifi network implemented for macOS as well as Linux
• Mission pad fixes & example improvement (thanks @jsolderitsch!)

2.1.1

• Examples ask the user for the WiFi name prefix

2.1.2

• Don't wait for a response from remote control (rc x x x x) commands

2.1.3

• Various SDK 3.0 fixes (thanks @jdelfino!)
• Handle "forced stop" message which arrives out of sequence